Taylor Mason

Infobox Comedian
name = Taylor Mason


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birth_name = Franklin Taylor Mason
birth_date = February 22, 1956
birth_place = Hinsdale, Illinois
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genre = Ventriloquist
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spouse = Marsia Mason
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website = http://taylormason.com
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Franklin Taylor Mason (born February 22, 1956) is a Comedian-Ventriloquist-Musician. The son of a radio farm broadcaster and a stay-at-home mother, Mason was born in Hinsdale, Illinois and grew up in suburban Chicago. While his father, Bill Mason, worked at WGN Radio and Television, a local Chicago station that featured farm news in the early mornings and every day at noon. This served as an introduction to show business for young Mason, who often accompanied his father to broadcasts. His father was also hired by farm groups to speak at their conferences and meetings, and Mason was a regular sidekick to his father’s speeches.

Early Life

His childhood was stereotypical for the time: piano lessons, little league, summer vacations and church dinners. His father was a deacon in the Congregational Church, where the Mason family attended every Sunday morning.

They moved to Ottawa, Illinois, while Mason was in high school, and he graduated from Ottawa High in 1974.Mason then attended The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in Agriculture and Communications, graduating in 1979. While there, he played varsity football for The Fighting Illini, and suffered a knee injury during his junior season. This led to an entire autumn in an ankle-to-hip cast, during which time Mason began performing at his fraternity as a Disc Jockey and comedian for dances. By the time his football career (he received the “Illini Champion” award and varsity letters) and undergraduate education ended two years later, Mason had become a campus favorite, spinning records and telling jokes at parties, college functions and university events.

Start in show business

During these two years of performance, Mason re-discovered a ventriloquist puppet given to him for a 10th-birthday gift by his parents. Reviving his skill as a ventriloquist, he combined the puppet, stand-up comedy and music into a sort of one-man variety show. Mason moved in with an aunt and uncle in Oak Brook, Illinois during the winter of 1980. He was working part-time as a waiter when he was “discovered” by ARNIE MORTON, a restaurateur, who found Mason playing piano and entertaining guests at a wedding. Mr. Morton offered Mason the job of playing the see-through glass piano at Morton’S in Chicago, where Mason worked during the balance of 1980. He often used his ventriloquist puppet to “heckle” the clientele who came to the bar, and this act led to jobs at Chicago piano bars.

Mason was hired as a musical director for The Second City Touring Company in the spring of 1981, and he worked as a musician for almost a year at the theater, learning improvisational comedy and theater, while helping to open the “Second City - Etc.” room. He met his future wife, MARSIA MASON, who worked as an assistant to the creative managers of The Second City, Bernard Sahlins and Joyce Sloane.

Mason was admitted to The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in the fall of 1982, where he spent the year in graduate school, earning a Master’s Degree in Advertising in June of 1983. During those 12 months at Northwestern, Mason began working as a ventriloquist at ZANIES COMEDY CLUB, just one block south of The Second City Theater. By the end of 1983 MR. MASON was working full-time in show business, either with Zanies or The Second City, getting a full education in comedy writing and performing. Sometime in 1984 Mason became the house emcee at Zanies, working 4-5 nights a week, where he paid his dues, creating material for his act, and setting the groundwork for a career. He helped open Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1984, and in 1985 he and Marsia moved to New York City. His act at the time revolved around a wooden-headed classic “dummy” and the piano. His material was “clean”, meaning he did not use profanity, and his act was gaining some notoriety locally in Chicago.

Mason worked his way into the emcee position at Catch a Rising Star in New York, and he worked there for three years, 1986-1989. Mason began a career at this time playing college campuses, mostly through NACA (National Association of Campus Activities). Over the next 11 years, until 2000, Mason did more than 1500 college shows, and won two “Family Entertainer of The Year” Awards. By 1990 Mason began making television appearances on all the popular shows of the day: EVENING AT THE IMPROV; COMIC STRIP LIVE; CAROLINE’S COMEDY HOUR; MTV HALF-HOUR COMEDY HOUR.

In late 1990 Mason auditioned for and was cast on "Star Search", hosted by Ed McMahon, and Mason was the grand-prize winner, earning $100,000 and some notoriety in the comedy world as a result. He did “The Comedy Club Network” show for SHOWTIME on cable-TV, and that led to an appearance on “COMEDY ON CAMPUS,” a comedy special for SHOWTIME that aired around 1993.

Mason moved to southern California in 1992, where he lived until 1995, headlining all the major clubs and playing hundreds of college dates over the next few years. He had added a couple of puppets to his act, began using a portable electronic keyboard, and maintained a “clean” edge to his performances. He had discarded the hard, wooden-headed puppets for smaller, soft puppets (something like MUPPETS) and these allowed him to pack more into a bag. His act packed small, but played big.

Sometime in the late 1990’s Mason added a life-sized sumo wrestler puppet to his act, and began to let audience members come up on stage and manipulate the puppets as he tried to synchronize the puppet mouth with words. This became a kind of signature, and he rode the routine to great success. Meanwhile he and his wife had two children and had moved to southern New Jersey in 1995. Off the beaten path of show business, Mason picked up work in a variety of locations: Branson, Missouri; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; resorts in The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania; Las Vegas; Atlantic City; and the ever-present colleges and comedy clubs.

Sometime in 2000, Mason was invited to perform at PRAISE GATHERING, a Christian conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. To make this opportunity worthwhile and somewhat unforgettable, Mason made a large puppet that looked like the host and Christian songwriter-singer-performer Bill Gaither. That performance led to MR. GAITHER offering Mason a spot on his “Homecoming Concert Tour,” and in 2001 Mason began a three-year stint playing large basketball and hockey arenas around the U.S.A with MR. GAITHER and The Homecoming Artists. Mason revamped his act, adding a pig puppet (PACO) and routines written specifically for the Christian audience. MR. GAITHER had Mason perform on three of his best-selling videos, filmed at CARNEGIE HALL in New York; THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE in Australia; and RED ROCKS in Colorado. In 2003 Mason made a video for a small TV network based in Columbus, Ohio: Guardian Television Network. That became a pilot for a comedy video series called “BANANAS COMEDY TV,” and Mason made another comedy video for GTN in 2004. These DVDs have sold upwards of 100,000 copies. In 2005 and 2007, Mason made a children’s TV show called “TAYLOR’S ATTIC,” featuring Mason and 12 of his puppets. Mason wrote all the music and did all the voices for 12 puppets.

In 2006, 2007 and 2008 Mason appeared on three DVDs produced by Hunt Lowry and Jonathan Bock: THOU SHALT LAUGH, THOU SHALT LAUGH: THE DEUCE and THOU SHALT LAUGH THREE. These have sold more than 400,000 copies over the past couple of years.

Mason continues to write and perform comedy, ventriloquism and music. He has worked extensively for THE DISNEY CRUISE LINE; he plays youth conferences and churches in the Christian market, finishing a spring tour in 2008 with comedian THOR RAMSEY called THE COMEDY EXPEDITION. He still does the occasional college campus, and he performs regularly in comedy clubs across the U.S.A. He is a much sought-after act for corporate and industrial clients, because his act does not center on race, profanity, the bathroom or the bedroom. Mason and MARSIA still live in southern New Jersey.

Discography

Videos

External links

* [http://www.taylormason.com Official site.]
* [http://www.thinkbigusa.net/TaylorMason/ Official Merchandise Company.]
* [http://www.nashvillespeakers.com/espeakers/9397/TaylorMason.html Exclusive Agency.]
* [http://www.myspace.com/taylormasoncomedy Official MySpace Page.]
* [http://taylorsattic.com Taylor's Attic.]